Abstract
Minimal research on parent-child sex communication between parents and gay, bisexual, and queer (GBQ) adolescent sons prevents the formulation of interventions that would buffer or brake this youth population’s risks for HIV/STI. We sought to describe the perspectives of GBQ adolescent males on this process and the potential ways they think parents can address their sons’ informational needs, including countering youth access of sexually explicit media. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with GBQ male youth aged 15–20 years. Thematic and content analysis revealed four central themes: prompts and triggers, parents’ approaches, sons’ reactions, and the functions assigned to sex communication. Parents can be sources of reliable sexual health information and may be leveraged for future HIV/STI risk reduction work.
Highlights
Sexual minority adolescents are at elevated risk for negative health outcomes compared to their heterosexual counterparts
With many GBQ youth often coming out to friends first prior to sharing their sexual orientation with family, recruiting from these spaces allowed us access to a rich participant pool who could best describe how PCSC unfolds in their homes
We identified four central themes on sex talk with parents from the perspective of gay, bisexual, and queer males: (1) prompts and triggers of sex communication, (2) parental approaches to communication, (3) sons’ reactions, and (4) the functions assigned by participants to the sex communication process
Summary
Sexual minority adolescents are at elevated risk for negative health outcomes compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Of the estimated 46,000 cases of HIV diagnosed in 2017 in the U.S, the primary transmission mode (70% of cases) was male-to-male sex. 7700 infections (16.7%) were among adolescent gay and bisexual males between. The sexual initiation patterns of young men who have sex with men indicate that many have early sexual debut including anal sex experiences [2]. Young men who have sex with men are less likely to report receiving HIV education in public school settings, but more likely to report sexual risk behaviors than young heterosexual males [3]. To counteract the lack of sexuality-congruent resources, this population uses the Internet to accesses sexually explicit media (SEM) for information about sex [4,5]
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